


similes

by thedevilchicken



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 02:21:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13354458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: People back home used to like to say there were two Laura Palmers. Sometimes, Donna wonders if that's true.





	similes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laughingpineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/gifts).



> Set in a sort of nebulous timeframe after the end of the original series and before the present day, sort of taking into account the new series and the Final Dossier.
> 
> Feel free to take the title the English way or the Latin way, to suit!

People back home used to like to say there were two Laura Palmers. 

Donna used to catch people saying it, in the corridors at school before graduation, pumping gas at Big Ed's, sipping coffee in the Double R. They'd look at her and they'd talk about Laura like she'd reminded them of her, and she guessed that made sense because once upon a time, before what happened happened, they'd been inseparable. They'd talk, sometimes so quietly she had to strain to hear what they were saying and sometimes so loudly they had to know she would; sometimes she'd correct the things they said, politely or angrily or someplace in between, and sometimes she'd just listen. But mostly it just made her think about the friend she'd lost. 

People liked to say there were two Lauras: one good and one bad, one day and one night, one the homecoming queen and the other an addict. They made it sound so clear, like the second Laura's choices had gotten both of them into some kind of trouble they just couldn't get out of, like the whole thing could've been avoided if she'd only been the good girl everyone had thought she was and not been the bad girl, too. They made it sound like everything would've been just fine if only good Laura hadn't let bad Laura win. But Donna knows better. She's knows they're wrong. 

Sometimes, when she sleeps, Donna sees Laura. That's when she _knows_ they're wrong.

In her dreams, the words Laura says don't always make a lot of sense, but that never seems to matter very much because she understands them at the time. Laura wears black and it suits her, black against blond, black against red, but it reminds Donna of that night that they went out to the Roadhouse even though that almost seems like more of a dream to her now than her dreams do. And they sit sometimes, and they talk sometimes, in riddles that Donna can't quite figure out again once she's awake though it's right on the tip of her tongue, at the edge of her consciousness. But Laura seems peaceful, even if it's just a dream. She supposes that's what matters. 

Laura hasn't changed at all over the years. She hasn't aged a day, though Donna has, and so has Ronette. Sometimes Donna thinks that if anything she sees in her dreams is real, Ronette must be it because she didn't know her well back then, back home - they had a few classes together through high school and they knew each other's names but they were never close, not like they each were with Laura. Donna remembers her mom telling her, _the Pulaski girl knew that_ other _Laura, sweetheart, not the real Laura, not_ your _Laura_ , but she knew that was wrong, too. She didn't say so, though, because she knew she wouldn't understand; she just smiled tightly and excused herself to bed. 

In bed that night, she dreamed of Laura; three nights later, Ronette was there, too, though Donna knew Ronette was still unconscious in the hospital. All she could think of was how close the two of them had seemed that night, _that_ night, like they'd been there before, more than once, more than twice, like Laura and Ronette Pulaski were used to each other's company just as much as Laura and Donna Hayward were, just in a different kind of way. She remembers how she envied that, and how in her dream, Ronette touched Laura's face, Ronette kissed Laura's mouth, and Laura didn't seem to mind at all. Unexpectedly, Donna envied that, too. 

She dreamed them again, and she dreamed them again. She dreamed the two of them dancing in that room together, swaying together though there wasn't any music she could hear, and she watched them from across the room, curled up in an armchair with her shoes abandoned on the floor. She dreamed the two of them swaying, mouth to mouth, their fingers twined in one another's messy hair, and she watched them from her armchair with her arms wrapped tight around her knees. She dreamed the two of them sitting side by side on the couch, dreamed Ronette's hand brushing upwards over Laura's knee, underneath her dress, and she watched that, too, wide-eyed. She heard Laura's strange sigh in the close, quiet air. She saw Ronette's mouth at Laura's neck. She saw Ronette's fingers in flashes of shifting black fabric down there between Laura's thighs. Donna bit her lip. Donna crossed her legs and squeezed. She woke up breathless. 

She dreamed them again, and she dreamed them again. She dreamed Ronette untying Laura's wrapover dress and dreamed the pink satin lingerie there under it. She dreamed Laura swaying with that unseen music, gathering up her hair from around her shoulders as Ronette started to strip her. She dreamed Laura's skin, so much of it, her neck and her breasts and her waist and her hips, her legs still in her stockings, her feet still in her high-heeled shoes. She dreamed Ronette sitting down on the couch and pulling Laura with her, Laura's back to Ronette's chest, Ronette's hands spreading Laura's thighs out wide. She dreamed Ronette's fingers teasing Laura's lips and Laura's hitching breath. She dreamed her own.

"Donna," Laura said, so she went to her. She went to _them_. And Donna kissed her, pressed her mouth to Laura's as Ronette's fingers rubbed there down between Laura's thighs. Laura brought Donna's hands up to her breasts as Ronette's fingers pushed inside her. She woke up almost throbbing. She used to think that was wrong of her; now, she knows better.

Donna lives in New York these days. She has a career, she has an apartment and money of her own, and she doesn't hate the things she does because she knows that Laura and Ronette did worse back then, back home, before. And she's older now, and so is Ronette, and in her dreams that makes perfect sense to her because there almost _are_ two Lauras, sometimes, just not the way that people back home meant there were; Laura's dead and alive, Laura died and she's missing, she's in there and she's out here, she's _everywhere_. 

Sometimes Donna misses her so much it makes her sick, then she dreams and there she is again. Laura wraps her arms around her and they take off all their clothes. Laura's fingers move down between Donna's wide-spread thighs, Laura's mouth moves down, she kisses her, she feels her tongue flick hot against her; her back arches, her toes point, and Donna knows that Laura loves her. Sometimes she misses her so much it makes her sick, but she knows she doesn't have to miss her. There is only one Laura. She sees her in her dreams.

She doesn't mind that sometimes Ronette's there with them, too, because she's not jealous of her anymore. They're both so much more like Laura now than they're like the selves they used to be, so they're more like each other now than they were then, too. If Ronette's really out there somewhere, Donna thinks she might think that very same thing. Maybe they're the same now, and if she met her in the street one day, if they passed each other, there would be an instant spark of recognition. Maybe they would go inside to drink a cup of coffee and share a slice of pie and they wouldn't even have to speak at all. Maybe they would go to bed and touch each other's skin and know exactly what they want, because they've seen it in their dreams so many times, because they want the same things. She thinks she knows how Ronette would taste. She thinks she knows how Ronette would feel. Maybe there _are_ two Lauras, except they're not called _Laura_ now at all.

The thing is, there were never two Lauras, one good and one bad. There was only ever one Laura Palmer and all those things that people said she was, they were all just parts of her. There was only ever one Laura, just no one ever really knew her before she was gone. They didn't know _all_ of her, at least, because everyone saw pieces, the pieces Laura let them see, and Donna asks herself sometimes that if they put all those pieces that they saw together, would she be there? She asks herself sometimes if that's what her dreams are, what _their_ dreams are; Donna and Ronette see all of Laura now, how she was like them and how they're like each other. In her dreams, sometimes she and Ronette take each other's hands, sometimes they dance, and Laura watches. Laura smiles. 

People back home used to like to say there were two Laura Palmers, but there never really were. There was only one Laura, and she was all the things they said she was at the exact same time. Donna knows she loved her for it, and she still does now.

In her dream tonight, the three of them join hands. They don't let go.


End file.
